Litigation

Thursday Judicial Elections Roundup

By Peter Hardin

These other elections around the country were making news.

CALIFORNIA: Campaigning for a Superior Court judgeship in San Francisco “has the city’s legal community fearing that a new level of partisan politics has risen in the judicial system,” according to a Wall Street Journal article. Combined, the two candidates say they have spent about half a million dollars on the race.

While a recent report co-authored by Justice at Stake highlighted soaring judicial campaign expenditures nationwide, the most politicized contests typically are in the higher branches of the judiciary, said Adam Skaggs of the Brennan Center for Justice, a JAS partner.

NEVADA: When a judicial candidate appeared in a campaign commercial wearing judicial robes from a former post, he didn’t violate ethics rules, the Nevada Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices ruled, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal article.

WASHINGTON: State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and candidate Charlie Wiggins sparred on a newspaper editorial withdrawing its backing of Justice Sanders, due to his recent statement that blacks are overrepresented in the prison population because they are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes, the Seattle Times reported.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).